(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Michael Martin, OFM has shared that the new chapel substituting for the previous four traditional Latin Masses of the Diocese of Charlotte is not meant to fit all of those who have attended the TLM.

Martin made the clarification in a Friday letter announcing the diocese’s official merger of its Latin Masses into one chapel, effective October 5. The newly renovated Little Flower Chapel, located 40 minutes north of downtown Charlotte, seats about 350 people, according to Martin. 

 “Understand that the chapel is not meant to be able to accommodate all who are currently attending the TLM in their respective parishes,” Martin wrote. He encouraged the Latin Mass-goers of the diocese to attend Little Flower Chapel occasionally, and even to wait until later in October or November to go to its Latin Mass, given its limited space.

Martin set off a firestorm of controversy when he announced in May the forthcoming closure of four Latin Masses throughout the diocese, per the dictates of Pope Francis’ Traditionis Custodes, which states that TLMs are not to be celebrated in “parochial” churches.

The backlash was so intense that Martin postponed the planned merger of the Latin Masses from July to October.

The devastation of the planned TLM shutdowns prompted Regina Magazine to produce a documentary, Bread Not Stones, in which Catholics of the Diocese of Charlotte opened up about the TLM’s impact on their lives, and their heartbreak over the suppression of the Latin Mass in their parish churches.

A few men in the film told how the Latin Mass was pivotal for their conversion to the Catholic faith, and one even testified that the TLM helped save his marriage.

One mother, Clare Gephart, highlighted the fact that her TLM parish community is thriving in a way she doesn’t see at other parishes. “Every single Sunday is standing room only. Every single event we attend is packed and full of life … It’s just bursting at the seams with love and life and families and children and elderly people,” Gephart said.

Traditionis Custodes, which has led to the suppression of dozens of Latin Masses around the world, has been denounced by clergy and scholars as a repudiation of the perennial practice of the Catholic Church and even of solemn Church teaching.

Cardinal Raymond Burke has stressed that the Latin Mass was “never juridically abrogated,” and that it is not permissible for a Pope to pretend to wield “absolute power” to “eradicate a liturgical discipline.”  

The Latin Mass thus “cannot be changed by a mere act of the will of even the highest ecclesiastical authority,” the cardinal wrote in 2021.

Liturgical scholar Dr. Peter Kwasniewski has also implored priests to resist the Latin Mass-throttling of Traditionis Custodes and its accompanying Responsa ad dubia “regardless of threats or penalties,” because obedience to these documents would undermine the very mission of the holy Catholic Church.

He has quoted the solemn words of St. Pius V’s bull Quo Primum, which permanently authorized the traditional Mass. Quo Primum states:

(I)n virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We grant and concede in perpetuity that, for the chanting or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever, this Missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used. Nor are superiors, administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or religious, of whatever title designated, obliged to celebrate the Mass otherwise than as enjoined by Us. We likewise declare and ordain … that this present document cannot be revoked or modified, but remains always valid and retains its full force …

Would anyone, however, presume to commit such an act (i.e., altering Quo Primum), he should know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

Latin Masses offered by priests of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) are continuing at St. Anthony of Padua in Mount Holly, near Charlotte. The Charlotte Latin Mass community has noted that the Holy See has written multiple times that “the Masses of the SSPX are valid and that the faithful who attend them fulfill their Sunday and Holy Day obligations.”